1. Field of the Invention
This invention deals with the addition of an inorganic liquid e.g. water and an inorganic additive e.g. a silicate and/or a metasilicate, such that when both additives interact, they combine to remove the heavy oil/bitumen from either oil/hydrocarbon wet, or water wet, tar sand. Each type of tar sand could be weathered/deteriorated or not.
2. Description of Background Art
Extraction of the heavy oil from tar sands falls into two classes—open pit mining and in situ mining. With the open pit mining process, the tar sand is transported to an extraction plant, where a hot water process separates the bitumen (heavy oil) from the tar sands.
In situ methods are used on the tar sands deposits which are too deep to be mined, and include but are not limited to, stem injection, solvent injection, and firefloods. The latter involves the injection of oxygen with part of the resources being burnt so as to provide the necessary heat.
Of all the in situ methods, steam injection is the favoured method.
The environmental problems associated with all the methods which presently exist are very well documented and include the following:                1) The use of large amounts of fresh water        2) Holding ponds        3) Tailing ponds        4) Evolution of carbon dioxide        5) The use of a large amount of energy.        
The present invention solves all the problems listed above.
It is particularly worth noting that this invention also solves issues not addressed by Trinidad and Tobago Patent # TT/A/2008/00122. More specifically the latter patent does not address the following (which are all addressed in the process described herein):                Cleaning up of the effluent and its reuse.        The actual yield of oil was never obtained in patent #TT/A/2008/00122—yield was calculated by virtue of ashing of the spent clay/sand.        Removal of heavy oil from oil wet/hydrocarbon wet tar sands. Patent #TT/A/2008/00122 is specifically for the water wet tar sand found in Trinidad & Tobago.        Patent #TT/A/2008/00122 does not address the issue of cost effectiveness.        Patent #TT/A/2008/00122 requires a mixing time of >24 hrs.        Patent #TT/A/2008/00122 does not improve the yield of the heavy oil without the use of demulsifiers        